Capstone Advancement

As I progress in the production stages of my documentary, "Reenacting Antietam," I have come across a few extra deliverables that I may need to include. In my proposal, I already included a list of deliverables which included the schedule, supporting research, location notes, credits for materials used, the final authored DVD, the final version in .mov format, and a VO script if I decide to do a voice over.  I recently met with my Capstone director where we sat and discussed a few options that may make this project a lot more professional.

 In order to make this documentary clear and convincing, I will need to make sure that I research my subject matter elaborately. My director and I sought out over five academic sources that I will use to document my findings. After a decent amount of research is conducted, I will then move onto writing up some kind of a script so that I can include voice over. I discussed using voice over with my director, and he thought it would be a great idea. He also suggested that I try to get back in contact with the advisor of this event and possibly back in touch with a few other re-enactors. I've contacted a few of them, but they have not responded to my messages. I will continue to try and get a hold of them as I progress.

Currently I am working on thoroughly researching through the sources I have been provided with. I have officially completed logging and capturing the six tapes full of raw footage from the event. It was quite a time consuming process as Final Cut Pro captures in real time. With the amount of footage I have, one can imagine the amount of hours I spent reviewing the correct ways to go about logging. It took me a good 8 hours to get it all digitized so that I may now cut and edit. The good thing is that I no longer need to worry about all of my footage being trapped on mini DV tapes.

My next plan is to continue researching cultural communication theories and weave them into my video through voice. I need to begin the actual editing process by scrubbing through my sequences and finding the exact shots that I want to use. I really need to obtain a vision in that sense. I already have the footage. It seems simple, right? But where do I begin? To some, it really doesn't matter. For example, it might be a good idea to start logging my credits and making sure I have each and every single name that I used. I could then move onto creating the actual credits sequence if I wanted to. Sometimes starting in the middle is the best way to go about editing. The middle could then be followed by creating the beginning and ending titles. To me, there really is no wrong way to go about completing the edits. I will say that throughout my career as a Communication and New Media student, I find it easiest to go about editing a video without a set plan. Some of my best work has been composed by simply playing with the material I have and then taking it from there.

In order to produce this project, I will need to master a variety of skills and technologies. Not only will I need to continuously re-familiarize myself with video/ audio editing software (Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro, Garage Band, After Effects, Photoshop), but I will need to make sure that I efficiently communicate my theories through. The goal is to ultimately make this project interesting to a wide variety of audiences.By documenting my experience, teachers, students, and community members young and old will be able to view this project as if they were experiencing the nature and art of reenactment.

 Digging through my location notes, I recently discovered a few still images that I snapped at the event with my digital camera. Although they may not be the clearest images, I believe that they still may be of use in my documentary. For now, I will  continue my strenuous research while editing the actual footage in Final Cut Pro. The labor of editing will be tough as I really need to refresh myself on the software. I have found that search engines such as Google and CreativeCow are the most helpful.The editing will definitely be difficult as there are so many shots that I would like to use. I realize that I may not need to use all of them as captivating as the experience was to me. As for research materials, my director suggested quite a few legitimate sources that discuss the realism of Historical Reenactments and how they affect culture. The reading has been quite interesting so far and I look forward to what Capstone has to bring me further into the semester.